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Page 4520

President_Weasel wrote:
There are a lot of supporters of Israel who seem eager to conflate anti-Israel sentiment with antisemitism

Think you need to be careful saying things like that. There is a confusion yes, and I'll accept that some confuse the issues cynically to further their agenda.

But the two issues are frequently related which is why they get confused, and particularly so outside this country where we seem to have the best ability to separate the issues. Anti-Semetism is a much bigger issue in France than it is here, and there Zionism and Judaism are largely interchangeable in my experience. This is even more the case in the Middle East obviously.

It also works both ways. There are plenty of people who are blatantly anti-Semetic, but use anti-Zionism as a shield to excuse it. Frankly this comedian guy seems to be doing a bit of that.

So yeah, speaking as an anti-Zionist/pro-Palestinian Jew I completely agree that anti-Zionism isn't the same as anti-Semetism, but I think you need to be a little careful about suggestions of who or what is the cause of any confusion on this point.

Yeah, that's what got me with the Januzaj stuff. It was never a possibility within the regulations. Isn't Bentaleb a relatively recent youth acquisition from overseas too? (2012 or so)

I have no idea how much these rules can be bent to be honest, but it just came across to me as a bit desperate when you have the national team's manager esentially begging a kid that has played about 2 first team games on Match of the Day when it wasn't really a possibility in the first place.

I think btw that Bentaleb has actually been with us for a while, despite only signing his first contract in 2012. Think we were trialling him for quite a long time. Not sure that counts towards the five years needed to gain citizenship. Probably does.

Swansea had to call the Police yesterday after Chico taped a brick to his hand and threatend hitting Monk with it hehe. Apparently Chico was pissed off that Coco Pops were taken off the menu after Monk complained about his unhealthy eating hehehe.

kalel wrote:
Perhaps my understanding of what a naturalised player is, is incorrect, but I basically mean players that weren't born in the country.

At the last World Cup most teams had a number of players not born in their country. England was one of the few that didn't.

(...)

I don't see any problem with making them aware that they're potentially on the radar for our national team one day. It's the sensible thing to do.

You're right, I missed Klose, sorry. Germany is difficult example anyway because they had a lot of complicated repatriation laws for people of German descent in other countries to move back and re-adopt German nationality.

What I'm trying to say is that there's a difference between moving to a country for non-footballing reasons and becoming a citizen of that country compared to being imported to a country by a football club and then staying there long enough to gain citizenship.

One is a perfectly normal form of international migration and England has been benefiting from that for years already with the likes of John Barnes.

It's also complicated by the fact that there's no such thing as "English" nationality. You can't be English; after 5 years of living in England, Janujaz or Bentaleb would theoretically be eligibile for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

captbirdseye wrote:
Swansea had to call the Police yesterday after Chico taped a brick to his hand and threatend hitting Monk with it hehe. Apparently Chico was pissed off that Coco Pops were taken off the menu after Monk complained about his unhealthy eating hehehe.

You do know that part was made up by someone on the Swansea City forums don't you? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick? haha

Paul has utterly fucked Tom up as a player. He's regressed so fast this season it's not true. I'd take a tenner and a packet of Woodbines for him on present form.

I'm sure he'll do well once he gets some confidence back, but as for now I care not where he goes. The sooner he goes, the better really, after having been dragged away by Backpass Barry from confronting our away support on Saturday.

What has Ince actually done wrong though? They didn't go down, and the 5 wins from 6 at the start has made everyone think they should be beating all the bigger clubs now. Sounds like expectations were too high? They are in a slump but hasn't he had loads of red cards and stuff in last couple of months.

Or is there more to this from those that know more about the club and if so let's hear it!

I've been going down Bloomfield Road since 1987 when we were in the old Third Division. I've seen us literally a couple of points off the bottom of the Fourth at one point. I've witnessed 15 different managers in that time, some utterly inept (Mullen, Carr, Worthington), some absolutely brilliant (Ayre, Grayson, Holloway) but Ince has been the worst of the lot, by far.

Off-field the guy has attacked an official and earned a 5 match stadium ban, slagged off the fans on several occasions, and has absolutely steadfastly refused to take any blame for the situation.

On-field: We've played the most negative, dire brand of hoofball I've ever seen played by ANY team. The players have been absolutely paralyzed by fear. We've scored one goal from open play in, I think, three months. We've lost 9 out of our last 10 games - in none of those games can I say that defeat wasn't absolutely the right result either. He's moaned and moaned about not having the players, despite letting some of our best ones go in the summer through choice and bringing in League 2 cloggers like Mackenzie and Bishop in to replace them. All this with considerably more resource than Holloway and Grayson had when they led us to playoff finals and promotion.

Blackpool fans can forgive many things and are generally an undemanding and patient lot compared to most (we've had to be!), but not playing proper football coupled with appalling results and the ridiculous attitude problem he's had since Day 1 can't be forgiven.